On Losing Everything Part Three

Of course losing sentimental items is by far the hardest part of a tragedy like ours. Some things really are just things, and can be replaced. The problem with that is that there are so MANY of them, and you don’t realize how many and much they cost and how long it took you to acquire them all, bit by bit, until suddenly you have none of them.
I have Target cards (thank you all very much!!) and we are working on replacing the practical items. But I can only take so much shopping at once before I begin to shut down. We have already done four big Walmart trips. By the last one I no sooner had walked in the store than I wanted to leave. We noticed that the longer we were in that place the slower we were walking. In particular trips into the bathroom aisle where I was confronted with the task of matching garbage cans and bathmats made me just turn around and leave the aisle, overwhelmed.
People ask me all the time what I still need. It gets harder and harder to explain because a lot of what we are needing now–and it’s still a lot– are the things that you don’t remember you need until they are not there. Like when I am stabbing John in the leg with my toenails and realize that we don’t have nail clippers. Or when two toilets were clogged at once and I had to go out to buy plungers. Or when there were sticky spots on the kitchen floor and I realized we didn’t have a mop. Or when I took the pizza out of the oven and had to saw it into slices with a steak knife because my awesome Pampered Chef pizza cutter burned up. Or when I sit down to work at night and it is too dark to see with only overhead lights.
Because people are still (thank you, thank you!) bringing us meals periodically, I have not been forced to make a big grocery trip. So I have salt and pepper, but no garlic. I have olive oil, but no Pam or canola oil. I have baking soda ( at Willie’s request, in case of fire) but no flour. I have a freezer full of leftover barbecue, but no steaks or chicken or fish or frozen vegetables. It is going to take hours to do the coupons and hours to do the shopping, and it wears me out just to think about it.
We’ll get there. We take little trips every few days. And we are so lucky to have the resources to be able to replace these things. And we have the opportunity to organize as we go, and to not make some of the mistakes we made in the past, which is wonderful. But it’s a big job.

Thanks so much. We have been so blessed and so fortunate, first in that no one was hurt, and second in how generous our community has been to us, that I have to admit I feel like I am supposed to move on now and not carry on about “things.”

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I feel pretty good when I read this list.~ A Grandparent’s Wisdom on Parenting ~

1. Let your child be a child. Children are not little adults.

2. Don’t have too many rules, especially when they’re little. They’re not going to remember them all anyway.

3. Pick your battles. It won’t work to make an issue out of everything your child does that you don’t like.

4. The greatest gift you can give your child besides your love is your time. Whenever possible, interrupt what you are doing to take time for them. Many things you need to do can be put off until later but many things your child does only happen once, and you don’t want to miss them.

5. Don’t micromanage your child’s behavior. It isn’t necessary (or productive in the long run) to try to control everything he or she says or does.

7. Kids get tired. When they do, it’s usually futile to try to reason with them to get them to do what you want.

8. Don’t say things to your own child that you would never dream of saying to someone else’s child.

9. Whatever stage your child is in, remember: this, too, shall pass, and they will move on to another stage. (This may be better or worse than the previous one!)

10. Don’t let mealtime become a battle zone. No child has ever starved to death yet because they didn’t eat everything on their plate.

11. Read to your child.

12. When your child starts talking, listen. What they say is important to them, and kids have great things to say.

13. Spend some time tucking your child into bed each night.

14. It’s good to find a church family to help you raise your child. You need others to support you. Your child needs to establish a good foundation of values and truth. If he or she doesn’t get this early in life, they might get it later and from someone else you may not like.

15. Take time every day to enjoy your child and relish this role God has blessed you with.

(Postscript: my dad says some of these are things he did, and some are things he wishes he’d done. ❤️) …

Timeline Photos"Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you." – Luke 14 #SundayGospel bit.ly/2ZpzEtS…

"Arsonists have set God’s Cathedral aflame. In the Amazon rainforest, home to hundreds of thousands of animal species, 40,000 plant species, and nearly a million indigenous people, fires are raging, destroying the ecological buttresses of one of the most biodiverse and important ecosystems in the world. These creatures are a testament to God’s good creation, a living, breathing cathedral, shaped by the evolutionary forces of God, and entrusted to human hands." …

"Baby loss is not just a story of grief, of pain and of tears, its a beautiful story of love and of celebration.

So let’s scream from the rooftops that all children matter, those that are here and those that we desperately miss."I haven’t shared this picture for quite some time so wanted to post it again this evening. These are my children…the ones that ran ahead and the ones who I get the honour to raise.

Someone said to me in an interview recently well you are the mother of two, I kindly corrected them. I am the mother of 7, just because five of my children didn’t get to grow up on the earth, doesn’t stop them from existing.

I also wanted to say this…Baby loss is not just a story of grief, of pain and of tears, its a beautiful story of love and of celebration.

So let’s scream from the rooftops that all children matter, those that are here and those that we desperately miss. ❤️

I am so unbelievably touched that SO many people have liked and shared this image, THANK You. Please feel free to also like my page and see future posts and quotes, I would love for you to become a FB friend x